Slightly OT: More Mastro Controversy

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Posted By: ronnie

I saw over on the gameusedforum site that Mastro seems to be in yet another controversy.

between the trimmed cards, the doctored cards, the restored game used football helmets and now two items in their big live auction at the national- (michael jordan shooting shirt and ted williams jersey fail authentication tests with mears but are being auctioned anyway) they can't get out of their own way

http://www.gameuseduniverse.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=9946

the list of places where i will buy vintage cards and bb equipment is getting smaller and smaller
ronnie

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Posted By: John Kalafarski

As W. C. Fields once put it, "The hills are fraught with marauders."

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Posted By: Ken McMillan

if the jersey does fit, you must Acquit........

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Posted By: Paul S

Or, the Hills are caught with defrauders.

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Posted By: Jason L

Well, this all does seem to be getting worse.
not sure how anyone can still have a high confidence level in their purchases.

I guess for now, there is still some consolation to be found in that they are not trying to sell an "authentic game-worn vintage football helmet worn by Michael Jordan during pre-game shootarounds for the Chicago White Sox while he was on hiatus from his NBA career with the Boston Celtics"...

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I read the MEARS LOA and it doesn't say the jersey is not Jordan's. It basically says everthing looks okay for a vintage NC shirt, the problem being the name has been changed. It says the name change could have been vintage and it's possible the name could have been changed for non-nefarious reasons-- but, due to the change and lack of information about why/how it was changed or credible provenance tracing it to Jordan (ala LOA from North Carolina equipment official or photo match), they won't call it authentic. The MEARS letter essentially says that there are positive traits to the shirt, but some questions would have to be answered before they called it authentic and, specifically, attribute it to Jordan. MEARS is well aware that if someone was going to fake someone's name on a North Carolina shirt, they'd chose Jordan's (as opposed to, say, Joe Wolf's)-- presumably causing them to cast a careful eye on any shirt that has a change to Jordan.

More specifically, while MEARS won't attribute it to Michael Jordan, their letter does specifically state that the shirt apears to be a vintage NC warmup shirt from the Jordan era.

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

It seems Mears doesn't have a problem with the number 23. So unless someone else wore 23 during the 1980-85 period and someone somehow got a hold of HIS jersey after the fact and removed the lettering and put "Jordan" on it, it sure would seem to me to be Jordan's.

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Posted By: JK

Peter,

Having gone to UNC, I can say that the possibility exists that it was a JV jersey. UNC still has a JV team that wears uniforms identical to the varsity team. Whether there is any duplication in numbers, I cant answer.

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Posted By: JK

Just went back and looked at last years JV roster and compared it to the Varsity roster. Eight players on the JV team had numbers used by the Varsity including #50 (worn by Tyler Hansbrough) and #34 (worn by Brandan Wright) - arguably the two best players on last year's team. Given that, I think its possible, even likely, that a JV player wore number 23 at some point during Jordan's years at UNC.

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Posted By: Chris

UNC does have number duplication with their Varsity & JV teams. I may email Adam Lucas to see what he would know about this. He has one of the largest Carolina basketball collections around and there are not too many people who know more about UNC basketball memorabilia than he does.

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Posted By: sagard

I've never seen a JV team get anything but hand me downs from the Varsity teams. It seems like it would have been more likely for the "Jordan" to have been peeled off and either had someone else's name put on or simply have the jersey no-named for the JV squad.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

My favorite WC Fields tale was when he told about his party being lost in the Andes mountains without a corkscrew, and were forced to survive on nothing but food and water.

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Posted By: peter chao

W.C. Fields, "it was a woman that drove me to vintage card collecting, and I never had the chance to thank her." Naw, that rephrasing doesn't work well.

Peter C.

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Posted By: Chris

I emailed the UNC basketball office last week to ask if they could shed any info on this sirt and this was the reply I received.

Sir,

We checked with our equipment manager and this is what he said in response to your email. "Jordan has his shooting shirt and no , the JV team has not worn shooting shirts in the last 26 years that I have been here".

Hope this helps.

Cynthia Somers
University of North Carolina
Mens' Basketball Office
PO Box 2126
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Office: (919) 962-1154
Fax: (919) 962-2306

Sounds to me as though Michale Jordan is still in possession of his shooting shirt he wore at Carolina.